Narrative Simulationism

From: Svechin_at_...
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 14:37:39 EDT


Wulf comments in reply to:
> >In the old days "A Lunar Humakt" was a usefull shorthand for YT in 

> >the absence of an actual writeup. Even then it was clearly a bit of a
> >botch, and now I think it's far past the time to lay it to rest.

> Personally speaking, I liked the situation where cults crossed
> barriers by being 'versions' of one another. The current trend towards
> 'Narrative Simulationism', where no part of the background may be
> permitted to be less than pedantically, absolutely, unequivocally,
> 100% realistic to an accurate model of a credible society and world
> seems designed to make you forget this is supposed to be a game, not
> an educational course in constructive anthropology and theology...

It certainly is a game, but the problem with using the one cult is another approach is that _all_ of Glorantha is not written this way.

For example, when we were writing the Yanafal cult for the ILH, we realised that if writers were prepared to spend signficant time and effort on detailing Humakt and his role in society and myth, then it would be a sad cop out to say "Yanafal is Humakt" when any reasonable examination of his origins and history would show that he is not. There may be similarities of course but it would be doing a huge disservice to that aspect of Glorantha to not detail it with the same seriousness and effort that we afford the Heortlings for example.

After GROY and FS for example it is impossible for us to use the old Yelm write up as anything other than the most marginal of resources for writing up the Yelm cult for ILH2. As Glorantha is explored and detailed so our understanding changes no matter how much we try and shoehorn old snippets of information into then new material.

I will add that I for one am totally a supporter of allowing "no part of the background may be permitted to be less than pedantically, absolutely, unequivocally, 100% realistic to an accurate model of a credible society and world" and would add "army" or "military" to that list too. Why? Because that level of detail and effort is what attracts me to Glorantha as a mental exercise as well as a game.

Martin Laurie

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